How much can a programmable thermostat save you? A lot, says Adam Gurno. His is the first guest-post while I’m on vacation
Due to the rising cost of, well, everything, my wife and I decided to make some changes to see if we could save some money. I had always heard that programmable thermostats were an easy way to reduce utility bills, so I took the plunge and bought one.
Then I sat down and created a spreadsheet to track exactly how much we were saving, if any. In the three summer months since it was installed, we’ve saved nearly 1000 KWH of electricity and it has repaid itself 150%. When winter hits (we’re in Minnesota), I expect to see these same sort of savings with my natural gas usage.
You can read more about the thermostat in this Flickr photo set.
The U.S. government’s Citizen Information Center has an excellent article on choosing a programmable thermostat.
Before you buy a programmable thermostat, chart your weekly habits including wake up and departure times, return home times, and bedtimes, and the temperatures that are comfortable during those times. This will help you decide what type of thermostat will best serve your needs.
For more information on reducing your energy costs, see Michael Bluejay’s excellent Saving Electricty site.
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Absolutely agree. One of the first things I bought when I got my house was a programmable thermostat. Best $40 I ever spent.
Previous to that, I had one of those old ancient dial type thermostats.
Paid for itself the first month. Gravy ever since.
Highly recommend every homeowner check into it.
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Pacific Gas and Electric company also provides a $10 rebate when purchasing a programmable thermostat. You get paid to save!
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And, don’t forget to use the thermostat’s “hold” function when you’re on vacation to set a temp and leave it at that.
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Can renters ever install these?
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Through a glass – Just ask the landlord. My tenant asked me if she could replace her’s and I let her. There is no reason to say no, it’s an improvement!
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I have an older model that came with my house. It’s great. I’d love to tweak a few of the settings, but I don’t have the directions. How hard is it to swap out a thermostat?
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Not that I want to encourage people to risk breaking their leases… but I would install these in my apartments without notifying the property. Of course, I removed it and reinstalled the original one when I moved out so they where none the wiser.
When I bought my house, it came with one. I think they are a must-have in TX.
One piece of advice… don’t go hog wild with the temperature swings. There is a cross-over point that where the ac/heat will have to run continuously to restore the temperature and kill your energy savings. I heard once upon a time that the rule of thumb is 5 degrees. So if you keep your house at 78 normally… and let it rise during the day… don’t go more than 83. I have no hard data to back-up that rule, but I feel like it makes a certain degree of since.
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How are these better than just turning the thermostat up and down manually? Growing up that’s what my parents did and so its second nature to me now.
It doesn’t seem like there’s anything inherent in a thermostat that you couldn’t do yourself once you go tinto the habit.
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JD and others: I thought you might be interested in this: it actually monitors how much money you’re spending on electricity in real time.
(If the link doesn’t work, go to Houstonist.com and search for “cent-a-meter”)
http://www.houstonist.com/archives/2006/08/09/what_price_elec.php
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I’ve been reading up on these for a while now. It seems that the best bet is the same as lights. If your not in the house, turn it off. It uses less energy to remove all of the heat at once, instead of maintaining a specific temp. (Mostly referenced from Michael Bluejay’s site)
These are nice; shut it down when you leave, have it come on just before you come home for maximum comfort and convenience.
I don’t care much for comfort so….
I’ve been turning mine, physically, off when I leave for the day and back on when I get home. It’s a little warm when I get home, but for the sake of this website, my electric bills have dropped by about half from last year(over $140 to around $60/mo.). I’ve done some other energy savings so I cannot be sure how much I have really been saving.
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[...] Adam Gurno for his Programmable Thermostats: A Three-Month Review [...]
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[...] Turn down the heat in winter. Turn down the air conditioning in summer. Especially when you’re asleep or away from home. (See also.) [...]
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They work to save money but more importantly the digital temp guages and smart heating/cooling is much more accurate than a manual thermostat with mercury thermometers inside. A must have in my opinion.
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[...] part of our effort to keep costs down, we use a programmable thermostat to automate the furnace. When we’re away (or asleep), we keep the temperature at 54 degrees [...]
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I am not impressed by programmable thermostat at all. It has actually caused my power bill to increase. I had it set to go between 65 and 70 degrees while I was away and at home. The stupid thing would bring on both the heat pump and electric backup heat at the same time about 10min before I got home in order to have the house at the desired temperature. I find this so inefficient it isn’t funny, being an engineer by trade it really annoys me.
If the temperature called for is greater than 2 degrees of what the house temp currently is a thermostat will bring in the electric backup. I think the logic should be programmed as to integrate the temperature change over a greater period of time allowing the heat pump to do the majority of work. Think about walking up steps its a lot easier to do it one step at a time instead of jumping all the way to the top at once, which is how your current programmable thermostat works.
I have now set my thermostat to vary between two degrees 65 for away/sleep time and 67 for awake time that way the electric heat stays off.
Just my $0.02
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Thomas, You may want to check the compatibility of your programmable thermostat with your heating system. It sounds like you have a dual stage heat pump, and many models are not compatible with this type of system, and are compatible only with single stage heat pumps. If you do indeed have a dual stage heat pump make sure you get a programmable model that is specifically compatible.
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I’m with jccalhoun. How are these things all that much better than manually setting your thermostat? I turn ours down when I go to bed and turn it back up when I get up in the morning. It’s chilly when I first get up but only takes a few minutes for the house to warm back up. When I’m going to be gone from home for a while I set it back down and again, undertake the horribly difficult task of turning it back up when I get home. Programmable thermostats make sense if you’re a) forgetful b)insist on the house being warm when you get up or, c) too lazy to use your fingers to turn the thermstat up and down.
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